‘Being modern and modest’: South Asian young British Muslims negotiating multiple influences on their identity

Abstract

With the rise of multiculturalism in Britain the visibility of religion, in particularly Islam, has increased. A growing religious diversity has created new contexts and affected young people’s identity and transitions to adulthood. This article applies and extends Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and social fields to a new area: the study of how South Asian young Muslims living in England negotiate between the Muslim and British aspects of their identity. The set of individual dispositions (habitus), which originates in the family field under the influence of South Asian cultures and Islam, changes when it comes into contact with non-Islamic fields. As with the concept of habitus, identity involves reconciling individual dispositions and structural conditions. Based on qualitative insights emerging from 25 semi-structured interviews with young South Asian Muslims, the article presents different strategies of identity negotiations exemplifying the constant and complex interplay between individual agency and the social world.